United (we fall)
by The Elvish Butterfly
Summary: In which everything Frera planned for the future with her best friend falls apart. Based off Hermione Thranduilion's Avengers One and a Half fanfic-go check it out! :)


**It looks like I'll be stuck with uploading prompts here for a while...enjoy! :)**

**United (we fall)**

The instant Frera heard the news she dropped everything and _ran_, her pounding feet beating out a tattoo on the concrete sidewalk echoed by her pounding heart.

_Don't let it be…Please don't be what I think you are…_

She skidded around a corner, already hearing the screams of fear from afar, the air laced with acrid smoke—it could not have happened less than a few minutes ago…

Frera halted on the sidewalk for an instant, her heart freezing numbly, because smoke was pouring out of the windows of an apartment, a shocked crowd already forming on the pavement in front, and _oh my God that's Alex's apartment_—

This had to be a surreal nightmare, because she ran forward, sight blurring, not caring that she was shoving people aside to get to the scene; smoke billowed out of the overhead windows of the apartment, its windows broken and blasted, walls scorched—ignoring the danger of the building collapsing, Frera dashed forward, scuffing against people, fear tearing at her heart.

_It was supposed to be safe…It was supposed to be a secret…_

"Let me through," she repeated unconsciously to the body of onlookers, the sounds of wails and gasps and pressing on her eardrums. "_Let me THROUGH!_"

She broke free of the crowd and threw herself against the shuddering door, wrenching it open and instantly inhaling a lungful of acrid smoke. Coughing, eyesight hazy from the drifting smoke, she pounded up the stairs to where she knew Alex and her dad lived, the singed, cracked stairs trembling under her feet. The ceiling looked like it might collapse, but she didn't care because Alex could be up there, hurt or kidnapped or dead.

Retching slightly on the smoke, tears streaming from her stinging eyes, Frera reached the landing—charred flames reared up tiredly from the doormat, and the door had been blasted off its hinges. The interior was so thick with smoke she could barely see. Taking a deep breath of burning air, Frera plunged into what had once been a living room, the outlines of destroyed furniture parts littering the room like the aftermath of war.

"Alex—_ALEX!_" she screamed hoarsely, coughing, trying to shield her watering eyes from the smoke with her hands. The flames were mostly damped, but the entire structure would come down soon, chunks of the wall scattered on the floor. Stumbling into the kitchen, she scanned the room and glimpsed something—_no, somebody_—on the floor in a pool of something. As Frera dashed forward across the sooty, tiled floor, she realized it was _blood_.

Alexis lay curled up in a scarlet pool of blood—hers or someone else's Frera didn't know—hands still clutching a pistol to her chest, cheek plastered to the now-red floor. Frera half-ran, half-slipped onto the floor beside her.

_No, no, no, NO…!_

"Alex—Alex?" Frera coughed, desperately searching for the source of all this blood, trying to find a wound—the explosion hadn't hurt her much except for minor cuts and bruises, maybe even a broken bone, but nothing to warrant this much blood—

And then she found it: it wasn't the bomb that did it. It was a bullet clean to back of the lung, followed by another to the base of the head. Mind buzzing, Frera inhaled sharply in horror, her hands soaked in scarlet. The ceiling was quivering, flames creeping sullenly along the rafters, threatening to collapse at any second, and Frera barely registered the magic flowing through her fingers to prop up the roof as she started applying chest compressions. Sudden anger surged through her, because it wasn't too late yet _I can still save her…_

"Alex, you—are—not—_DYING_," she screamed down in the girl's face, every nerve hoping for an answer, anything. "Not after—all—we went through—and not after—you surviving the Chitauri—and the battle—_you've survived—worse than this—AND I DON'T CARE WHAT SOME STUPID—FANATIC THINKS BECAUSE OF SOMETHING YOUR DAD DID, YOU—CANNOT—DIE—NOW!_"

Choking on the smoke and smell of blood again, Frera doubled over, sobs catching in her throat, and real tears cutting through the soot on her face.

"Alex…please…for me…_won't you just MOVE?!_" The sound cracked in her throat and came out hardly as an anguished whisper. Finally, Frera stopped her useless hand motions, her body heaving with effort and heat and Alex's _wasn't_.

The flames were licking across the floor now, but the ceiling held for now with the magical reinforcements. Frera hardly cared. With shaking fingers, she removed Alex's pistol from her still-warm fingers and pulled her closer, collapsing against the back of the wall. Frera's whole body trembled as much as the wall behind her, but she didn't care.

_Alex._

The smoke was only growing thicker, invading her nose and mouth and making her head swim, but Frera didn't care, because time had no meaning as Alex's head rested on her shoulder and blood still seeped onto her clothing. Frera's eyes blurred from the smoke and the tears that intermingled with the blood and the soot in Alex's hair.

_Alex._

The smoke made the whole scene hazy, surreal, fringed by the orange glow of flickering flames and black char. Sudden wails of red and blue sirens flashed through the haze like lightning searing a thundercloud, and Frera dimly realized that, magic or no, the house was on fire and going to collapse soon.

_I have to get her out…_

Closing her eyes, Frera felt her magic withdraw from the ceiling as she pulled it to herself, ripping a hole in the fabric of Yggdrasil to she didn't know where, but somewhere near here (_Bucky_). Her heart felt hollow as she held Alex tightly, felt the ceiling finally disintegrate and crumble as the rip enveloped them together.

_You were my friend._

And together they fell.


End file.
